Vegetarian Pizza

1. Go for the garnish

Pretend you’re Salt Bae and go all-in with the garnish. Any one of The Pizza Plant’s vegetarian pizzas can be embellished with edible herbs and other flavor-enhancing accoutrements. Try fresh basil, rosemary, or oregano to give our frozen pizza that fresh-from-the-garden taste. A glug of good-quality olive oil also helps to transform store-bought pizza into “tastes-like-homemade” pizza.

2. Make it a salad

The simplest pizzas—such as The Pizza Plant’s Not Your Grandma’s humble marinara and mozzarella pie—are canvases to something complex and extraordinary. Toss together a simple salad of arugula, cherry tomatoes, and thinly shaved red onion dressed with lemon juice, salt, pepper, and olive oil, then pile this peppery mound of greens on top of your pizza. A plant-based Caesar salad with a few bright sun dried tomatoes also pairs wonderfully with veggie pizzas.

3. Nooch it up

All of The Pizza Plant vegetarian pizzas come with vegan mozzarella cheese, but if you were that kid who always asked for extra cheese on your pizza, there is a way to amplify the cheese factor: make it rain nutritional yeast. Nicknamed “nooch,” this plant-based, flaky yellow seasoning has an uncannily cheesy flavor and goes well with just about anything. We particularly enjoy a sprinkle of nooch on our veggie-heavy pizza, the Veggie Pals.

4. Get figgy with it

Figs are the most underrated vegetarian pizza topping. The combination of fig, tomato sauce, and creamy mozz simply works. Here’s how: start with The Pizza Plant Not Your Grandma’s frozen pizza. Add a handful of arugula, dollop on quartered fig slices, and drizzle the whole thing in a balsamic reduction (Trader Joe’s has a great syrupy balsamic). It’s a harmony of hot-meets-cool, and it’s equally mouth watering when consumed at room temperature. Fig pizza might just be your new favorite thing.

5. Balsamic, baby!

The sweet and bright acidity of a balsamic reduction can make magic when paired with vegetarian pizza. We particularly love a balsamic drizzle over our Not Your Grandma’s or our vegan-sausage-topped Salsiccia Italiano pizza. To really make that balsamic shine, caramelize some onions to go along with it. The sweet flavors compliment each other while the plant-based sausage prevents the dish from tasting too sweet.

6. Hello, pesto!

Spoiler alert: you don’t need dairy cheese to make pesto. In fact, there are quite a few store-bought options for dairy-free (and vegan) pesto on the market. Again, Trader Joes for the win with its Kale, Cashew, & Basil Pesto. This herbaceous, bright-yet-earthy sauce really amps up any vegetable-based pizza. Our Veggie Pals is the perfect fit—the kalamata olives, shaved red onion, sliced bell peppers, and cashew-based mozzarella piled onto this pie were made to be Jackson-Pollocked with pesto.

7. Just wing it

Take a cue from buffalo wings and deck out your vegetarian pizza with dairy-free ranch and thinly sliced carrots and celery. Any meaty, spicy pizza is ideal for this application—both The Pizza Plant’s Everything But the Hog and Salsiccia Italiano will do. It’s a fun (and delicious) way to literally spice up pizza night!

8. Be sweet

One of the latest trends in pizza is hot honey. This thick, sweet-meets-spicy syrup is typically paired with pepperoni. Recreate a plant-based version of this trend with our Everything But the Hog vegetarian pepperoni pizza and a liberal drizzle of agave or vegan honey (try Blenditup Bee Free Honey). Turn up the heat with a dash of red pepper flakes if you dare.

9. Get your frico on

Before your mind starts wandering to scandalous places, relax. Frico is cheese that has been melted into a wafer-thin shard—think of the corner of lasagna that gets crispy. When applied to pizza, frico is an extension of the pizza crust made entirely from cheese. It’s good stuff. To add frico to any vegetarian pizza, place the pie in a cast iron skillet or round pizza pan greased liberally with olive oil on the bottom and all the way up the sides.

Mound shredded plant-based cheese (mozzarella works) all over the perimeter of the crust and about one-half inch up the sides of the pan. Place in the oven until the cheese has completely melted and transformed into a wall of crispy cheese. Enjoy.

10. Get shroomed

How could we not throw this in here? We love adding sautéed or fresh mushrooms to our Veggie Pals and Salsiccia Italiano pizzas before popping them into the oven. Virtually any kind of mushroom works—cremini, button, shiitake—all are fair game. Mushrooms add that ooh-mami taste every vegetarian pizza needs.

11. Slice it up

There are infinite ways to glam up The Pizza Plant pizza, but few think about how to slice it. Think outside of the triangle. Go box-cut and serve with a side of extra pizza sauce for dipping; slice horizontally for a pizza slab; or criss-cross your pie to make diamonds. There’s more than one way to top and slice a pizza! Pro tip: dip your pizza cutter or very sharp chef’s knife into warm water before cutting each slice—it ensures a clean cut every time.